Monday Miscellanea

This Week In London’s History

Monday – 15th October 1881: The Royal Comedy Theatre (now simply known as the Comedy Theatre) opens in the West End.

Tuesday – 16th October 1987: In the early hours of the morning, a huge storm of hurricane intensity wreaks havoc across London (and much of the rest of southern England). Wednesday – 17th October 1814: At the Horse Shoe Brewery on Tottenham Court Road, a colossal vat containing 3555 barrels of beer bursts. The ensuing tsunami of beer causes several nearby buildings to collapse, and results in 8 fatalities – including a dubious report of alcohol poisoning as one man supposedly attempts to stem the tide of beer by drinking it. Thursday – 18th October 1922: The British Broadcasting Company (later to become the British Broadcasting Corporation, or BBC) is formed, and soon starts broadcasting from Marconi House on the Strand. Friday – 19th October 2003: After 44 days of being pointless in a perspex box suspended from a crane near Tower Bridge, illusionist David Blaine comes down.

Random London Fact Of The Week

In 1797, inspired by emerging Parisian fashions, hatter John Etherington designed a somewhat curious-looking tall cylindrical hat. On walking outside his shop on the Strand, sporting his new creation, he attracted so much attention that a huge crowd gathered. In the crush to get a glimpse of this new fashion, some members of the crowd became unruly, and one man was pushed through a shop window. The police were duly called, and Etherington was arrested for inciting a riot.

The ‘top hat’ did catch on, though.

London’s Weather This Week

If the forecasters are to be believed, it’s going to continue to be quite mild for a couple of days, albeit with the chance of rain tomorrow, but then the nighttime temperatures will drop a bit. Turn the heating up a bit on Wednesday.

Picture taken from haleyhughes’ Flickr photostream under the Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial licence.